THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: The Overview; Bush Tones Down Criticism Of Clinton Visit to Moscow

By MICHAEL WINES,

Published: October 10, 1992

CINCINNATI, Oct. 9—
President Bush rushed today to mute an accusation that Gov. Bill Clinton was hiding details of a trip he took to Moscow at the height of the Vietnam War.

In a morning television interview, Mr. Bush softened somewhat a tactic that an aide said had backfired. The President said he now accepted Mr. Clinton's statement that the visit was a tourist excursion unrelated to his activities in the anti-Vietnam war effort while he was studying at Oxford University in England.

Mr. Clinton has said that he visited Moscow alone and stayed about a week but that he cannot remember everyone he met there.

"If that is what he's said and that is the whole truth, sure; I accept that," Mr. Bush said in an interview on the ABC program "Good Morning America." "If he's told all there is to tell on Moscow, fine. I'm not suggesting anything unpatriotic about that. A lot of people went to Moscow. That's the end of that one as far as I'm concerned."

But he said he would not stop criticizing Mr. Clinton's role in anti-Vietnam war protests that same year because, he said, "I feel strongly about it" and "the American people probably agree with me."

He made good on that pledge hours later in Cincinnati. There he told some 200 police officers that it was wrong to "demonstrate against your country in a foreign land when soldiers are being held captive and soldiers are dying in Vietnam."

"I feel strongly about it," he said, the cries from the crowd drowning out his words. "You let the liberal elite do their number today, trying to call me Joe McCarthy. I'm standing with American principle."

Mr. Bush was here in Cincinnati to accept the endorsement of the 240,000-member Fraternal order of Police, the nation's largest police union.

Taking a break from his work to speak to reporters in Kansas City, Mr. Clinton dismissed Mr. Bush's contention that his comments about Mr. Clinton were "from the heart."

"It is now obvious from the press reports that far from speaking from his heart, he is speaking from a prescribed political strategy cooked up in the White House by Robert Dornan and other extreme right wingers," said Mr. Clinton, referring to the Republican Representative from California.

An aide to Mr. Bush said today that the President's attempt to use the Moscow trip as another lever to pry voters away from Mr. Clinton had come across as too strident, and had only damaged the Bush campaign.

"It backfired," said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The intent was to suggest that this was part of Clinton's efforts to mislead about his past, not that something clandestine occurred in Moscow. But that's the way it came off. The interpretation, frankly, bombed." Conflicting Interpretation

But another Administration official, traveling with Mr. Bush, played down any interpretation that Mr. Bush was retreating.

"If Clinton has told the truth about his trip to Moscow, as the President has said, that's fine," the official said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity. "But if not, he should come clean. Like on the draft issue, he should tell the truth. Clinton doesn't have a good record on putting forward all the facts."

The Moscow controversy erupted on Tuesday when, responding to a question on a Cable News Network interview program, Mr. Bush called on Mr. Clinton to "level with the American people" about the trip, adding: "You can remember who you saw in an airport in Oslo, but you can't remember who you saw in Moscow?"

Asked for his opinion of the trip then, Mr. Bush had said: "I don't want to tell you what I really think. To go to Moscow, one year after Russia crushed Czechoslovakia, not remember who you saw there----"

Aides said today and on Thursday that Mr. Bush had made the remarks on CNN in part because he had been "pumped up" on Mr. Clinton's Moscow trip during a Tuesday breakfast with four Republican Congressmen.

The four -- Representatives Duncan Hunter, Randy (Duke) Cunningham and Dornan, all of California, and Sam Johnson of Texas -- have spoken angrily in the House about Mr. Clinton's antiwar activities.

But Mr. Clinton has termed Mr. Bush's offensive a "pathetic" and "desperate" attempt to gain votes.

The episode paralleled the campaign's effort in August to create a wave of support for Mr. Bush's emphasis on "family values" at the Republican National Convention. Not Backing Away

While saying he now accepted Mr. Clinton's account of the Moscow trip, the President labored today to keep alive qualms about his opponent's antiwar activities, saying they raise questions "of judgment and character, not of patriotism."

In a day in which he divided his attacks equally between his Democratic opponent and the press, Mr. Bush said he "will continue to define Governor Clinton for what he is and what his record is," and added: "I'm not going to back away from it one single bit."

Mr. Clinton, closeted in a hotel in Kansas City to bone up for the debate, said in his brief session with reporters that Mr. Bush had "turned the Republican Convention over to the far right for two days and now he's apparently going to turn his campaign over." The Governor said that in opposing the war in Vietnam, he spoke out against only "the policy of the Government, not against my country." He argued that many Vietnam veterans accept that rationale.

Photo: President Bush boarding a helicopter yesterday on the grounds of the White House as he left for several campaign stops in Ohio. (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)